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The Tentpole King
The Tentpole King was ruler of the Mudhum peoples beginning with the Godsfall and then continuously throughout the Conflation of the Spires— a difficult position at the best of times, as the Mudhum had historically been a war-like people, and prone to quarrelling. The Tentpole King distinguished himself among Mudhumish rulers by being the longest reigning of a generally long-reigning bunch, and by, more notably, being a semi-divine being. The creature (and I use the term fondly) known as the Tentpole King was the result of a remarkably soft landing during the early days of the Godsfall. When the gods began warring in the heavens, the Thousand-Hoofed Horse was among the first to be knocked out of the firmament by his rival the Ox-Whose-Horns-Are-Mountains. The Horse fell in the Mudhumish Desert, and impacted among the tents of the nomads who dwelt there. His landing cushioned by the sand, by several intervening layers of canvas tent, and by the tentpole that he snapped, the broken god, rather than shattering, merely cracked. Hemorrhaging the stuff of the Divine Mandate from every fissure, he was still— though barely— able to crawl to the Saddle Throne of the then-king of the Mudhum, by all accounts a clever if brutish man, and unseat him in his state of surprise at seeing a god plummet out of the sky. Claiming the Saddle Throne himself, the Thousand-Hoofed Horse— now sadly bereft of any hooves at all—opened his newly man-like mouth and brayed loudly. It would be several weeks before he was able to speak the Mudhumish language, during which time the Mudhum tentatively ignored him. Once he was able to speak, he made it known that he was now ruler of all he saw as befitted his Divine Nature. Unfortunately, that Divine Nature had been seriously depleted by his fall, and his once-great powers were considerably shrunk. Even so, they were enough to cow the Mudhum, who began to worship him as a minor god— which in effect he was, though one from outside their own pantheon. As ruler of the Mudhum, The Tentpole King waged a successful war against the Kurgan , driving them out of the Mudhum Desert when they tried to invade— an endeavour they never again attempted, beaten too badly by the Mudhumish nomads' hit-and-run tactics— which only helped to solidify his own hold over the region. He also, and quite notably, made a winter pilgrimage to the Low Country, once he had a more human grasp of geography, to spend the season among the locals while his people remained behind in their winter oases, unable to travel through the Razor Winds off of the desert— a feat the Tentpole King only managed due to his remaining divinity. Once in the Low Country, he stayed for the celebration of Atiphany , having known the Miser before falling on the Mudhum. After the festivities he returned to the desert to oversee the digging of a series of new wells, to provide better water during the winter months, the oases no longer able to support the full might of an expanding Mudhum powerbase. ~Bartholomew the Elder, Second Penmaster or Verdais (See Atiphany , Kurgan , and Divine Rivalries ) Category:T